Kevin Jagernauth

A thriller so turgid that its setting in logging country starts to feel like heavy irony: Lord, does it lumber.

Unlike some mock biopics or music documentaries that rely on a particular kind of specificity to succeed, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is universally, gloriously stupid. And that’s not a slight — it takes a considerable amount of smarts to make something that so winningly observes the ridiculous facade of the pop music sphere, but gives it a wide-ranging reach.

According to Len, rock ‘n roll is "blood, bourbon, and napalm," and it’s exactly those elements that the film needs, but doesn’t provide.

While The Ones Below doesn’t make it over the finish line, Farr shows good instincts, and has an ease for creating tension without overt manipulation, while keeping everything engaging enough that you’re willing to overlook questions that nag after the credits roll.

Falls flat on its face thanks to a severe lack of self-awareness and an air of dramatic self-importance.

Director Anne Fontaine’s film is based on actual events and grapples with thorny questions that plague even the most zealous during times of crisis. It’s a pity, then, that this picture finds Fontaine compelled to find a resolution in a situation that seldom yields easy answers.

A taut thriller that almost doesn't waste a single step.

It’s [Trachtenberg's] measured hand with tone that's really noteworthy, never over-reaching with each twist of the plot, keeping the tension on a simmer, and even when things boil over, “10 Cloverfield Lane” gets feverishly exciting but not hysterical.

While slight, the film’s genuine feeling and overall comedic consistency has enough breezy charm to make it go down easy and pleasurably.

With Only Yesterday, Takahata not only succeeds in transmitting how years can flash by, but also the way that passage of time makes clearer the moments that define our character, and go on to influence how we choose to live later.

Diamond Tongues is refreshing because it isn't an indictment of a demographic, or even of Edith, but is a portrait of a young woman whose ambition has curdled into something more nasty along the way.

It’s a film that desperately wants to upend the tropes of the comic book movie, but perhaps more shocking than anything that comes out of the mouth of its often obnoxious titular hero, is how blandly the picture sticks to the origin story playbook.

Tedious and painfully miscalculated, Dirty Grandpa is never as filthy or funny as it thinks it is.

Working at cross-purposes, Colonia tries to have it both ways, wanting to be a shocking true story drama and a riveting piece of moviemaking. But it’s not intelligent enough to accumulate any emotional payoff, and it’s too generic and unsophisticated in its execution to work purely as popcorn entertainment.

The entire film seems cloaked with a general vibe of “good enough.” Embarrassingly cheap CGI effects, poor ADR, and slipshod, jarring editing are the technical failures that compound with the creative ones to indicate a movie that’s not just miscalculated, but seemingly committed to putting together, at its best, a deliverable product and nothing more.

Fitfully entertaining, and even more rarely actually funny, Daddy's Home, tellingly, only really comes alive in the very last portion of the third act.

Body is very much an exercise, but by a couple of guys who are already showing a confident handle of coaxing solid performances out of their cast, sustaining a mood, and not reaching beyond their means.

For those who are coming to Codegirl looking for a fiery rebuke and exposé on the gender imbalance rampant in Silicon Valley, they've come to the wrong place.

The film’s haphazard construction is made all the more frustrating because somewhere in this material is a much more resonant picture.

Hanks' insightful tribute to the retailer, and chronicle of their history, is the story of the music industry, who had it all, and believed the good times would last forever, only to see it all slip away.

While the material might be the substance of a handful of reality shows you could easily watch on television, there is only one Jake "The Snake" Roberts, and his story matches the epic highs and lows of his life.

While aesthetically it doesn’t do much to break the form, it more than succeeds in presenting Joplin as a flawed, insecure, deeply brilliant woman who, unfortunately, couldn’t shake her demons.

Witty, observational, and hilarious, Maggie’s Plan is the kind of richly complex dramedy that proves to be the rare picture that serves both halves of that genre description fully, equally, and satisfyingly.

Vanderbilt chooses to present the tale with a lighter comic touch in the early stages, and it’s a tone the picture can’t overcome in its final third.

screenwriter Amy Jump and director Ben Wheatley are less concerned with the message than with the madness, and their resulting picture is heavier on style than substance.

While certainly imperfect, there is something to admire about the film’s attempt to present the tangled logistics of a single military operation, where it seems everyone wants success but none of the responsibility of the tough decision making involved.

That The Dressmaker remains watchable in any sense is thanks in large part to a cast who give the material that’s way beneath them far better treatment than it deserves.

Ultimately, Dellal’s film is never as brave or courageous as Ray, and in spending more time on Maggie than her son, misses the opportunity to jump from informational to insightful.